SPARTANBURG, S.C. — If he had the chance to re-enact Saturday’s decisive game-ending situation, Elon football coach Jason Swepson would stick to the same script.

There was no second-guessing from Swepson, who stood by the four straight running plays that were bottled up at the goal-line as time expired and Elon lost 31-27 at Wofford.

“I’d do the same thing again because that’s where we want to go,” he said. “That’s who we want to be. We want to be a physical team that runs the football. And we’ve proven that we can run the football. It’s not an unknown.

“That’s why I feel good about what we did. If it wasn’t proven, there would’ve been a whole lot of different calls down there.”

Fifteen plays and some huge conversions — most notably, quarterback Mike Quinn’s pass to running back B.J. Bennett that gained 10 yards on a fourth-and-8 — brought the driving Phoenix to first-and-goal just inside the Wofford 5-yard line with 1:10 remaining.

From there, Bennett carried four consecutive times for minimal yardage. The afternoon, and Elon’s opportunity to score a significant Southern Conference upset, culminated on fourth-and-goal just inside the Wofford 2 with four seconds left.

Bennett was smothered for no gain and the final seconds ticked away, uncorking a field-rushing celebration for the Terriers (4-2 overall, 3-0 league), who are ranked No. 12 in the Football Championship Subdivision.

“We did the right thing. We just didn’t execute,” Swepson said. “There was no reason for trickery down there. We’re not a hocus-pocus, try-to-fool-them football team. You’ve got to be able to run the football, even when they know it’s coming.”

Swepson used timeouts prior to third-and-goal from the 3 and fourth-and-goal from inside the 2. Quinn said he concentrated on giving his teammates quick pep talks during those breaks and stressed how Elon (2-5, 1-2) had arrived at a defining moment, while Swepson and offensive coordinator Chris Pincince conferred through their headsets.

Quinn, who passed for 285 yards and two touchdowns and tends to thrive on the move in rollouts, said, “I’m going to go no comment on that” when asked afterward about the play selection at the goal line and four straight run calls.

Elon ran Bennett out of a spread formation on third-and-goal, then opted for a jumbo package on fourth-and-goal with 304-pound backup tackle O’Shane Morris at a tight-end spot on a heavily stacked offensive line and tight ends Zach Duprey and Jesse Tate grouped in the backfield with Bennett.

Page 2 of 2 - Swepson said he won’t be haunted by the decisions at the end of Saturday’s oh-so-close loss.

“We called our best plays down there and just didn’t get it done. That’s the bottom line,” he said. “It’s still a learning process for us. There’s still a lot of work we’ve got to do. But I think if we’re in that situation again, we’ll get it done.”